Police departments across Minnesota will open their doors to accept unwanted, unused, and expired medications on Saturday as part of National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
The St. Louis Park Police Department is among the long list of Minnesota police departments taking part (view the locations here) in Saturday's take back day.
"There is a problem nationwide with an overabundance of unwanted prescription and over-the-counter medication," said Mikael Garland, an Investigations Lieutenant with the St. Louis Park Police Department.
According to date from DOSE OF REALITY, an effort put together by the Minnesota Attorney General's Office and the Anoka County Sheriff's Office, 70 percent of the state's 3,500 opioid-related deaths in the past 15 years have been caused by prescription drugs.
"Our concern with prescription drugs staying in homes and medicine cabinets is that a small child could get a hold of them, someone who doesn't know the risks, or someone who isn't authorized to take them," Lt. Garland said. "That's a problem for the community that we're trying to reduce a little bit."
The overabundance of prescription drugs, Garland says, is contributing to the tragic overdose deaths and opioid epidemic plaguing Minnesota and the rest of the United States.
"Misusing prescription drugs can lead to addiction and can certainly in our experience lead to the use of illegal drugs," Lt. Garland said. "We find that a majority of the prescription drugs that are misused come from family and friends' medicine cabinets."
St. Louis Park police will be one of several metro departments receiving and disposing prescription drugs during Saturday's takeback day.
"Just the opportunity to turn in prescription drugs to dispose of them properly is such a great prevention technique that we can use and promote to try and help with the public health issue any time we can," said Eden Prairie Police Sgt. Rob Johnston.
National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is also targeted towards combatting the use of fentanyl, which continues to devastate communities across the world. Fentanyl, which experts says is 50-100 times more powerful than morphine, has become a deadly challenge facing not only substance users, but law enforcement as well.
"I've been a police officer for over 20 years and at the start, no one had ever dealt with fentanyl because it just wasn't part of the list of legal drugs we were dealing with," Lt. Garland said. "More and more often we're seeing that fentanyl is being mixed in with other types of illegal drugs. When people think they're ingesting heroin, it may largely be fentanyl and have a much greater risk for overdose than what the user might think they may be normally taking."
Lydia Burr is Director of Clinical Services at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Burr says fentanyl continues to fly under the radar for so many people, which is particularly dangerous.
"Fentanyl needs to be part of the opioid epidemic conversation and its presence in multiple substances of abuse which are contributing to the overdose rates we're seeing right now," Burr said. "Fentanyl is cut into many different substances and so somebody may be using it and have no idea."
Burr adds that the lack of knowledge many have about fentanyl's potency is a danger.
"It is very easy to overdose on fentanyl," Burr said. "Somebody may be taking it and not even know in what quantity."
Individuals who are unable to participate in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday are encouraged to look for information regarding medicine disposal sites that run on a 24/7 basis.
Information about sites in Hennepin County can be found here.
